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Friday, 20 January 2012

Upcycled fabric heart brooch tutorial

I have an ever-expanding collection of vintage fabric and denim scraps left over from making things for Pouch. I came up with the idea for these pretty little heart brooches a while ago. I thought I would share them as a crafty tutorial.

They make a great gift for valentines. Or you could make one for yourself to brighten up a jacket or cardigan. Alternatively you could make a batch of them to use as favors at an eco-themed wedding. When I have some spare time, I make a selection of these brooches and pop them in my customer’s parcels as an extra free gift. They are simple to make and you can use any colour combination of fabric and felt – the variations are endless!

You will need:

Patterned fabric scraps (lightweight fabric with a small pattern is best. I use upcycled scraps of pillowcases and bed sheets left over from making peg bags and lavender hearts.

Heart templates (these can be found at the end of the tutorial. I have drawn them onto an A4 sheet of paper, so if you print them out at 100%, you should get the same sizes as I used for my own heart brooches)

1) First cut out the three hearts needed for the brooch. Cut the felt and denim heart out with pinking shears and cut the patterned fabric out with normal straight-edged fabric scissors.
I use pinking shears to cut out the felt and denim heart. This isn’t essential, but I do like the effect pinking shears have on the felt. Even though the denim heart wont be seen because it is at the back, I still like to cut the denim with pinking shears to minimise fraying.

2) Pin the patterned fabric to the felt heart. Carefully sew around the edge. I use a conventional straight stitch, but if you were feeling ambitious you could use a tiny blanket stitch. The easiest and quickest would be a simple running stitch around the heart. My personal preference is the straight stitch photographed below.

3) Sew the brooch back onto the denim heart.

4) Once the fabric heart is sewn onto the felt and the brooch back is attached to the denim heart, you need to glue the two components together. Cover the wrong side (WS) of the denim heart with your choice of fabric glue and carefully place in the centre of the WS of the felt heart. Press together firmly. I like to use fabric glue rather than sewing the two parts together because once the glue is dry it adds more rigidity to the brooch.

5) Place fabric heart side downwards on a suitable surface like a tray and leave the glue to dry, preferably overnight.

You can make any number of variations, such as bigger hearts or adding the odd vintage button or two – I would love to hear any other ideas you may have!

3 comments:

Hi. I am organising a an Exhibition in London in aid of Reunite children's charity and would like to ask you if you would be willing to contribute one of your felt heart works. The Theme of the exhibition is A Mother's Love. I have sent out empty heart templates to various celebrity and artist mums and have asked them to fill in with their interpretation of a what being a mother means to them.I have already received hearts from Emma Thompson, Minnie Driver and various other artist mums. I have also already have some great PR. If you are interested please do let me know and I'll send you a letter with the heart template. thanks!

hi there, many thanks for your comment, I would be interested in taking part. I cannot seem to find a contact email address for you, so hopefully you will see this comment and get in touch again!you can send a message to me via my website:http://www.pouchbags.co.uk

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I like to blog about vintage finds, my latest crafting project and share ideas for entertaining children. You can also find me on Instagram and Twitter.

I'm a proud Mum to our beautiful little girl. She brings out the big kid in me and we like to do creative and silly things together. As a family we love walking, camping, den building, digging our allotment and beach combing...we're happiest when making the most of the great outdoors.